Monday, 20 February 2012

D-Day: Dakotas and Gliders

Well, back from France now, and while there we went to a D-Day aviation museum in Sainte Mere Eglise, a small town in Normandie which was in the middle of events on the 6th June 1944. The museum had a restored US-built Waco glider and a Douglas C-47 (military variant of the DC-3/Dakota).

John Steele famously landed on the church in Sainte Mere, effectively having to play dead amongst the barrage of bullets while American forces liberated the town

A Waco glider, these were towed aloft by C-47's, each carrying 13 troops. The British Horsa gliders were larger, seating up to 28.